Cultivating rice in Indonesia

General
about Indonesia

Indonesia,
officially theRepublic of Indonesia, is a country inSoutheast
AsiaandOceania. Indonesia is anarchipelagocomprising approximately17,508 islands.It has33 provinceswith over 238 million people, and is
the world's fourthmost populouscountry. Indonesia is a republic, with an
elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city isJakarta.
The country shares land borders withPapua New Guinea,East Timor, andMalaysia. Other neighboring
countries includeSingapore,Philippines,Australia, and theIndianterritory of theAndaman and Nicobar
Islands. Indonesia
is a founding member ofASEANand a member of theG-20 major economies. TheIndonesian economyis the world's17thlargest
economy by nominal GDP.

The Indonesian archipelago has been an
important trade region since at least the 7th century, whenSrivijayaand then laterMajapahittraded with China
and India.
Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political
models from the early centuries CE, andHinduandBuddhistkingdoms flourished. Indonesian
history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources.
Muslim traders brought Islam, and European powers brought Christianity and
fought one another to monopolize trade in the Spice
Islands ofMalukuduring theAge of Discovery. Following three and
a half centuries ofDutch
colonialism, Indonesiasecured its independence after World
War II. Indonesia's
history has since been turbulent, with challenges posed by natural disasters,corruption, separatism,a democratization process, and periods
of rapid economic change.

Across its many islands, Indonesia
consists of distinct ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. TheJavaneseare the largest—and the politically
dominant-ethnic group. Indonesia
has developed a shared identity defined by a national language, ethnic
diversity, religious pluralism within a majority Muslim population, and a
history of colonialism and rebellion against it.

The following table shows some important informations about
Indonesian country and people:

Agriculture
in Indonesia

Agricultural map of Indonedia

Indonesia is a widespread archipelago of 17,500 islands located along
the equator in Southeast Asia, with a diverse
tropical environment and plentiful annual precipitation. Located along the
“ring of fire” the nation is home to the most active volcanic islands in the
world (Java and Bali).

The agricultural environment in Indonesia is divided largely
by geography and altitude, with intensive food crop production occurring on the
inner islands (Java, Bali, Lombok and Madura) while less-intensive perennial
cropping systems (estate crops of oil palm, sugar, rubber, cocoa, coffee, tea)
predominate on the outer islands of Sumatra, Kalimantan Sulawesi, and Papua.
Natural soil fertility is highest on the inner islands, while lower-fertility
acid soils predominate on the outer islands. This is a relic of the geologic
parent material for the soils and the degree of weathering they have been
subject to over the millennia. IRRI scientists indicate that rice was first
introduced to Indonesia
in about 1500BC, and has been under continuous cultivation for the past 3,500
years.

The volcanic origin of the archipelago provided vast areas
of fertile soils which support both dense tropical rainforest and agriculture.
Average annual rainfall in the country is roughly 3,175 millimeters (125
inches), but can exceed 6,100 millimeters (240 inches) in the mountainous
highlands. The combination of copious rainfall and fertile soils make many
areas of the islands ideally suited for farming.

Total agricultural land in 2010 was estimated by the
Indonesian government (BPS) at roughly 40.7 million hectares, or 22 percent of
the total land area in the country. The major crops produced in Indonesia
include, but are not limited to, rice, palm oil, sugarcane, cassava, coconuts,
corn, bananas, rubber, mangoes, oranges, chillies, sweet potatoes, soybeans,
and peanuts.

The following table shows the Area Harvested (ha), The Yield
(kg/ha) and the Production (tonnes) of the main Crops in Indonesia 2010:

Cultivating rice in Indonesia

Stagnating Rice
Production Ensures Continued Need for Imports

Indonesia ranks 3rd in the world in regards to
total rice production, but has also been the world’s 7th largest rice importer
over the past 5 years – on average requiring over 1.1 million tons of imports
per year. Of the top ten global rice producing nations, only the Philippines and Indonesia also rank in the top ten
of all rice importers. Owing to the perennial shortfall of rice production,
food security and the pursuit of national rice self-sufficiency have become
predominant concerns of the government in Indonesia. Rice is the staple
foodgrain, and the country's primary statistical agency (Badan Pusat Statistik
or BPS) estimates Indonesia
to have the 7th highest per capita rice consumption rate in the world, at 139
kilograms per person. The Indonesian government also estimates that its people
rely on rice for roughly 50 and 40% of their daily caloric and protein
requirements, respectively. For this country of 248 million people (The World
Factbook), the status of its domestic rice supply is synonymous with its food
security. However, in recent years total rice consumption has been rising faster
than production, as the growth rate of national rice area and yield has
faltered.

This imbalance has the potential to weigh
heavily on domestic food prices and the international rice market anytime
adverse weather causes significant declines in seasonal rice production. The
fact that Indonesian rice production has stagnated during the past 5 years when
beneficial rainfall has been the norm is a real concern. In recognition of
these underlying trends, government authorities announced new program
initiatives in 2011 to create a 10 million ton rice surplus (milled basis) by
2015. However, rice industry observers indicated there are no quick or easy
solutions to producing increased growth rates at the farm-level today in Indonesia – and
the country is likely to continue to require imports to fill the gap. Analysts
from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta investigated the rice production environment in Indonesia and
the outlook for growth in the sector during travel in the country in early
2012.

Rice Growing Environment

Rice yields in Indonesia

Rice is by far the most important food crop
grown in the country today, with cultivated area estimated by USDA at 12.2
million hectares in 2011, accounting for 30 percent of total agricultural land.
Rice is grown by approximately 77% of all farmers in the country (25.9 million)
under predominantly subsistence conditions. The average farm size is very small
at less than 1 hectare, with the majority of farmers cultivating landholdings
between 0.1 - 0.5 hectares in size. Rice production is heavily concentrated on
the islands of Java and Sumatra, with nearly
60 percent of total production emanating from Java alone. When crisscrossing
the island of Java by car or airplane, it would be
understandable to mistake it for the mythic “garden of Eden,” as it is
incredibly lush and intensively cultivated – with nearly every square inch of
space producing food crops of one type or another. At the same time, Java is
the most densely populated island in the world and home to nearly 60 percent of
the nation’s population (approximately 143.8 million). Given the highly
concentrated human population, there is intense competition for land and
pressure to intensify the cultivation cycle and enhance the productivity of
whatever food crop is being produced. Java, therefore, is also the focus of the
country’s rice research and development efforts, as agricultural scientists
search for the next breakthrough in high-yielding varieties and improved
farming systems.

Rice is cultivated in both lowland and upland
elevations throughout Indonesia,
with the upland crop typically being rainfed and receiving only low levels of
fertilizer applications. Irrigated lowland rice is both well watered and
heavily fertilized - accounting for approximately 90% of total national rice
area and 94% of total production. As a result, irrigated lowland rice yields on
average are about 60% higher than rainfed upland crop yields. Lowland rice
cultivation is heavily concentrated on Java, but is also prevalent on Sumatra
and Sulawesi - the 3 islands together
contributing about 89% of total national rice production.

There is also a small amount of rice grown on
the outer islands under a traditional shifting cultivation system using slash
and burn techniques. This crop is usually associated with small farmers in
remote areas who are establishing a mixed plantation of rubber trees and food
crops. The existing forest is cut and burned, making way for rubber tree
seedlings to be interplanted with upland rice and corn crops.

Irrigation

Irrigational rice yield in Indonesia

Irrigation is the foundation for stable
high-yielding rice farming systems throughout the world, and Indonesia is no exception. The
reliability of annual rice production is greatly enhanced through increased
control over the timing and volume of water that is made available to the crop
during its growing season. Farmers have engineered local systems from ancient
times, diverting water from streams and rivers to nearby croplands.

By the 1960’s it was reported that roughly 60
percent of the country’s irrigation systems were in disrepair. Major government
programs to rehabilitate existing irrigation infrastructure and construct
additional schemes began in 1969. During the following 40 year period Indonesia
gradually expanded its irrigation capacity for annual crops, with total
irrigated area rising approximately 3.25 million hectares or 77%. Total rice
area in the country grew alongside the expansion in irrigation systems,
increasing 4.0 million hectares or 49% between 1970-2011. National paddy
(rough) rice production, benefiting from both enhanced irrigation supply and
the widespread adoption of modern high-yielding varieties, increased 39.4
million tons or 203%. Milled rice production increased 24.2 million tons or
184%.

It is estimated that 40-50% of all irrigation
systems nationwide are currently in disrepair, causing limitations to
agriculture. In addition, the growth rate of new irrigation system development
is also slowing compared to previous decades, as government budgets are largely
targeted toward major crop subsidy programs for fertilizer and seed. As a
result, neglected investment in irrigation infrastructure repair and
development will impose serious impediments to the future potential for rice
production growth in Indonesia.

According to Indonesia’s
Ministry of Public Works in 2012, approximately 84% of total rice area in Indonesia is
irrigated, while the remaining 16% relies on rainfall. Rice is grown
year-round, with some farmers being able to cultivate 3 crops within a given
12-month period. It is far more common for growers to cultivate 2 rice crops
per year, with the typical seasonal crop cycles or rotations being
rice-rice-fallow or rice-rice-secondary crops (corn, soybean, peanut).

FAO estimates that approximately 70% of total
lowland rice area produces 2 rice crops each year. About 60% of total rice
production occurs in the first crop cultivated during the wet season
(November-March), while 2 smaller harvests occur during the dry season.

According to FAO’s AQUASTAT country database, the
majority of rice sown in all 3 seasonal crops is irrigated either from large
technical schemes managed by the government, regional systems managed by local
governments, or community level systems operated by farmers themselves. Severe
drought is not a common occurrence, but can become a major region-wide problem
during strong El Nino weather events. The last severe El Nino occurred in 1997,
causing crop yields to decline approximately 5%. Farmers typically have
significant flexibility to sow crops outside the normal planting window, when
short-term dryness caused by delayed onset of normal seasonal rains occur.
Delayed plantings usually do not incur significant yield reductions in the rice
crop, but can lead to grain quality problems when later-than-normal harvests
coincide with particularly rainy weather.

Historical Rice Area and Yield

Area and yield of rice in Indonesia

A series of very beneficial developments from
1960-2000 helped Indonesia
radically increase its rice production capability during a period of very rapid
population increase. These developments ensured that national rice production
basically kept pace with rapidly rising domestic demand (consumption) for rice,
ensuring the country’s basic food security while also reducing its requirements
for imports. This prolonged period of rapid growth in both rice crop area and
yield coincided with the “Green Revolution,” wherein new high-yielding
cultivars were developed along with improved farming systems to significantly
increase cropping intensity and yield. Indonesia’s
total rice area increased roughly 5.25 million hectares or 76% between 1961 and
2010, primarily through gradual expansion of double and triple cropping on
Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. The development
of new irrigation schemes, including a sharp increase in the construction of
major reservoirs, enabled many areas to intensify the rice cultivation cycle
and harvest more than one crop per year. By 2011, more than 50% of total rice
area is routinely cultivated during the dry season (2nd and 3rd crops), a feat
which was simply impossible before these major national infrastructure
developments.

Indonesia’s crop researchers also contributed
to decades of rapid growth by developing and releasing 190 high-yielding (HYV)
wetland and 30 high-yielding dryland or rainfed varieties since the 1960’s.
Their pioneering work in isolating improved varieties enabled the country to
more than double the national average rice yield by 2010, increasing it by an
estimated 135%. Indonesian farmers have been fairly proactive in adopting new
varieties, with an estimated 85% of all farmers cultivating HYV’s. However, it
is also true that the most popular HYV rice variety sown in 2011, called IR-64,
was first released in the 1960’s. IR-64 currently covers over 31% of total
national rice area, and farmers have been cultivating and harvesting this
legacy HYV cultivar for over 40 years. This demonstrates that there is
significant resistance to new seed technology, with many years required to wean
growers off previously adopted favorites. The second most popular variety,
called Ciherang, currently covers 22% of total sown area and was first released
in 2000. It is the first variety in decades to successfully begin to displace
major crop acreage once devoted to IR-64.

Overall consumption and use of fertilizer in Indonesia also
skyrocketed during this period, supporting farmer’s ability to substantially
boost crop yields on fields devoted to both older traditional varieties and new
HYV’s. It should be noted that it took many years for newly introduced HYV’s
such as IR-64 to gain acceptance and cover substantial acreages.

In the years from 1960-1980 the majority of
national rice area would still have been devoted to older traditional
varieties, rather than HYV’s – and the dramatic improvement in overall national
yield during those 2 decades is a testament to rising fertilizer use throughout
the country. Data from the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA)
show that total national fertilizer consumption increased from 144,000 tons in
1961 to 4.47 million tons in 2009, or a 3,000% increase. FAO has documented
that roughly 52% of all fertilizer consumed in Indonesia is applied to the rice
crop, with the remainder utilized on the country’s corn, palm oil, vegetable
and fruit crops. They also note that the strong growth in overall fertilizer
consumption between 1970 and 1990 was directly fueled by government policy and
programs directed towards increasing rice production.

The government actively sponsored the creation
of a domestic fertilizer industry to guarantee adequate supply, subsidized
fertilizer costs to farmers, and developed a national crop extension service to
provide outreach to growers unfamiliar with new varieties or fertilization
techniques and usage. After 1990, total rates of fertilizer consumption
stagnated as the government dramatically reduced both its fertilizer subsidies
and rural extension services. This combination of policy and budgetary changes
targeted at agriculture resulted in a protracted period of stagnating rice
yields (1987-2000) and food security problems, with unusually high levels of
rice imports required from 1994-2002. A shift in government policy reinstating
substantial fertilizer subsidies in 2002, however, reversed the trend once
again and enabled further growth in national rice yields.

Despite all the historical progress, current
observers of Indonesia’s
rice sector are becoming concerned by the apparent slowing of longer-term
historical growth rates for both rice area and yield in the country. Crop yield
growth averaged nearly 4 percent per year between 1960 and 1989, but has since
slowed to about 0.5% per year between 1990 through 2010. Similarly, after rice
area expanded at a rate of 138,000 ha a year between 1960-1998 (2 % growth
rate), it slowed to an average rate of 9,000 ha a year (less than 0.1% increase
per year) between 1999-2010. Neither of these issues has easy or inexpensive
solutions, but both decelerating growth trends imperil the ability of
Indonesian producers to supply adequate volumes of rice to the domestic market
in coming years.

Government Rice Goals and Initiatives

The Indonesian government is grappling with the
issue of food security by promulgating policies it hopes will spur significant
increases in food crop production and encourage greater consumption of non-rice
food staples such as cassava and corn. So far, however, there is no evidence
that a concrete plan of workable solutions has been developed or initiated at
the provincial level, or that the population is interested in consuming
significantly more cassava. The importance of these issues was apparent in a
February 2012 Forum on Food Security held in Jakarta, when the President
reiterated publicly that the country would continue to be vulnerable to future
food crises as long as they depended too heavily on rice as the national staple
food. In other words, it appears Indonesia cannot realistically
attain rice self-sufficiency and it will need to diversify its diet to include
non-traditional foodgrains. Unfortunately, this is signaling that the government
either does not believe it can engineer sufficient growth in the rice sector,
or is disinterested in allocating sufficient long-term financial resources to
accomplish it.

In regards to these issues, what has the
government proposed? A few of the major initiatives are outlined below.

a) Rice transmigration scheme 2009

In November 2009 the newly appointed
Agriculture Minister announced that a key priority of his ministry in its first
100 days was to revive the Suharto-era transmigration scheme wherein large
numbers of farmers from Java would be provided land in the outer islands to
grow rice. The Agriculture Minister instructed the National Land Agency (BPN)
to find ways to make as much as 6.0 million hectares of suitable land available
to rice farmers. There has been no concrete plan developed or land made
available as of 2012.

b) Merauke Integrated Food and Energy
Estate (MIFEE) 2009

The government is targeting a remote section of
the province of Papua (Merauke Regency) for major
commercial-scale agricultural plantations, including rice, corn, sorghum,
sugarcane, palm oil, timber, livestock, poultry, and fish. It originally
proposed between 1.2 – 2.5 million hectares of land would be allocated for
commercial companies to produce food and energy crops, with a minimum farm size
of 12 hectares. Mechanized commercial rice farming of nearly 300,000 hectares
was planned. Food commodities like rice produced in Merauke were not allowed to
be exported until the government determined domestic demand had been fully
satisfied. A land suitability study was completed in 2008, but as of 2010 only
500 hectares of rice farms had been developed.

c) System of Rice Intensification (SRI)
expansion 2011

The Agriculture Ministry intends to increase
the area under the Integrated Crop and Resource Management (ICM) program from
100,000 hectares in 2011 to 1.5 million in 2015. This implies expanding the
program from an estimated 250,000 participant growers in 2011 to 3.75 million
in 2015. The ICM program couples a new lower-cost rice farming system called
SRI with integrated pest management (IPM) to significantly increase rice
yields. Rice cultivated under SRI techniques generally uses less seed, water,
and fertilizers – yet produces 20-40 percent higher average crop yields. The ICM
program relies heavily on dedicated agronomic and pest-management support and
education from a limited number of qualified crop extension officers. Serious
problems at the farm-level have arisen in the past few years as growers attempt
to adapt to this new farming technique. Difficult water and pest management
issues can arise, reducing yields and eliminating the benefit of the improved
system. Farmer's adoption of this technique is expected to be slower than
projected, if only because the availability of qualified and knowledgeable
extension staff is in such critically short supply throughout the major
irrigated rice growing regions in Indonesia.

d) State-owned companies commercial
rice production scheme 2012

In January 2012 the government announced plans
to spend US$998 million to create 100,000 ha of new rice fields in the province of East Kalimantan, with possible extension
to 300,000 ha if the initial project proved successful. The State Enterprises
Minister reported that 3 state-owned companies currently specializing in palm
oil and fertilizer production are expected to raise sufficient capital to
convert the land and produce upwards of 1.0 million tons of rice by 2013, with
potential to expand that to 6.0 million tons annually thereafter. This is part
of the central government’s target of creating a national milled rice surplus
of 10.0 million tons by 2015. The Minister further elaborated that state
enterprises needed to take control of rice production because local governments
on Java and Sumatra were unable and unwilling
to boost their output, in part due to funding constraints. A land feasibility
study has not been completed nor has any infrastructure development preceded
the announcement. Without a single hectare of farmland licensed or converted to
rice paddy land (most of the targeted areas are forested lands) as of March
2012, it is unlikely that 1.0 MMT of rice will be produced by 2013 – let alone
anywhere near the 15.4 MMT increase required by 2014 to produce a 10.0 MMT
milled rice surplus.

Conclusions

The agricultural sector in Indonesia reportedly
employs over 40% of the national workforce while contributing approximately 17%
of GDP. It is one of the pillars of the country’s economy. The World Bank
reports that the governments agricultural spending has been increasing at approximately
11% per year since 2001, with its share of total government spending doubling
from 3 to 6% by 2008. Agricultural subsidies now account for about 60 % of the
Ministry of Agriculture’s annual budget, with the fertilizer subsidy being the
single largest expenditure. And yet, despite this pattern of strongly growing
public sector investment or expenditure in agriculture over the past decade,
most food crop yields are stagnating.

A host of serious and somewhat intractable
inter-related issues are expected to limit future rice production growth rates
in Indonesia,
including:

10-Lack of performance incentives for
government employees who initiate and implement major agricultural programs,
including crop extension at the local and provincial level.

As outlined in the article above, the
combination of stagnating crop area and yields in Indonesia has the capacity to
derail any hope the country has in the near future of achieving rice
self-sufficiency. Population growth, estimated at 1.47% in 2010 (BPS), is now
outpacing the growth rate of domestic rice production – inferring that the
scale of annual imports will grow until the country can revive its rice sector.
Area growth is hampered by historically low government investment in irrigation
infrastructure rehabilitation and development, while yields are constrained by
the generally slow uptake of new HYV’s and low capital availability (general
impoverishment) of the average rice farm household. As in many Southeast Asian
nations, the easy advances in crop production growth have already been achieved
thanks largely to the introduction of improved varieties, increased
fertilization, and greater access to irrigation. Reigniting growth in the
Indonesian rice sector in coming years may require far greater investment,
education, and development than the government has the budgetary latitude to
support. In any case, the prospect of rice self-sufficiency over the coming
decade seems increasingly difficult if not impossible to achieve.

Current USDA area and production estimates for
grains and other agricultural commodities are available on IPAD's Agricultural
Production page or atPSD Online.